PEACEFUL READING IN A TIME OF FEAR AND WAR: 2/4: Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Misadventures-Rare-Bookseller/dp/1324092076/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Welcome to Sotheran’s, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books, and some things that aren’t even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice.
Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram).
1818 Buckingham Library
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ah, she's brilliant. Miss, I finally got plans out the group chat. We get it. Four votes for a festival, |
| 0:05.9 | three for a city break. It's hard to adhere to everyone's needs. There's Betty with her oversized |
| 0:10.2 | tent. Sarah and her six foot eight boyfriend. |
| 0:13.1 | All right. |
| 0:14.0 | Roger Junior and his dog, Roger Senior. |
| 0:16.8 | And don't get us started on Mel. |
| 0:19.4 | But, like a marriage counselor, she's the one keeping things together. |
| 0:22.6 | All aboard Miss I finally got plans out the group chat. |
| 0:25.6 | Keep everyone's plans alive when you travel with us. |
| 0:28.0 | P, and O'Ferees, there is another way. This is |
| 0:39.0 | CBSI in the World. I'm John Bachelor with Oliver Darkshire. He is the author of a new book, Once Upon A Tome. |
| 0:42.0 | It is extremely well written and it is charming but at the |
| 0:45.0 | same time it's a world that I did not know existed that is inside a rare booksellers |
| 0:52.0 | shop you enter into this and I kept having moments |
| 0:55.9 | thinking I was entering into a Twilight Zone episode that the 21st century |
| 1:00.6 | would disappear and I would be in the 18th century and all these books |
| 1:04.5 | would be new. Oliver had a first day at Southerans answering what looked to be |
| 1:10.7 | an opportunity for an apprentice. |
| 1:13.0 | Oliver, can you take us to that moment that you opened the door, |
| 1:16.0 | your experiences what you saw, what it felt like? |
| 1:20.0 | Thank you. |
| 1:21.0 | Well, initially I tried to open the wrong door. |
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